Just like she'd said, Akane arrived safely at Yuka's house, and now the three of them were on their way back to her place for their study group. Honestly she was still a bit steamed about Ranma indulging in their parents' overprotectiveness and following her out like that. It wasn't really any of his business, and he was letting his imagination get the better of him.
"He'd better not have eaten any of the bunnies," she complained aloud to nobody in particular. "And he'd better not have gotten into a fight on the way back and ruined them either!"
She tsked and tutted, not just at Ranma's behaviour but her own as well. On the one hand she should probably stop thinking about him for a minute. On the other, she should at least trust that he could take care of a simple matter. She could at least cut him a bit of a break for being a little paranoid given the nonsense they had to deal with routinely. In all honesty she was kind of looking forward to a perfectly ordinary study night with just the three of them -
Ah, but just then several things happened simultaneously. You could sort of call it "the past catching up with the present". It rolled across the street like an invisible wave. It didn't really seem to do all that much unless you were watching for it. Maybe a displaced smudge, some dirt in a slightly different place. Nothing that would really catch the eye unless you were specifically looking for it.
On the other hand, when it hit Akane the changes were a little more profound. Her mood changed pretty much immediately. Her confidence rose and swelled up. Not that she was lacking in confidence exactly, but it showed a little more easily in her body language. The wave passed over her completely, then continued right on its way down the street.
With just the four of them studying tonight. It was so weird how she used to not like Mariko all that much when she first arrived at Furinkan, and now they were best friends. Heck, come to it neither Sayuri nor Yuka seemed the sort to be in her group of friends at all. Mariko was a bit of a ditz, she was a bit full of herself, but she had such a positive outlook and went out of her way to help encourage them whenever they were feeling down, and as an expert in cheerleader martial arts you had better believe she could do that very, very well.
"Uh oh," Akane said quietly. "Here comes trouble."
But the friendship wasn't entirely beneficial. Much like Ranma, Mariko had her own host of crazies to contend with. And here was one of them now, walking confidently down the street. It honestly made Akane roll her eyes just having to deal with this girl. Jet-black hair that gleamed, tied up with a pair of pigtails that trailed down to barely touch the tip of her shoulders. The girl was just a bit shorter than Akane, not by much. Barely noticeable really. But one thing you couldn't ever ignore, the very first thing anyone would ever notice about this girl was her hips rather than her height. They honestly made her seem much, much bigger than she actually was. And the way she worked them, with the correct application of wires and leads, could probably be used to power a city. Or at least a village, let's not overstate things quite that much.
Following that observation one might also notice what she was carrying on her back, which could perhaps be described only as the single biggest ball of wool in the world, with the single biggest needle stuck right through it (with a huge cork on the end to keep it from jabbing people). She carried it everywhere she went, and even now her hands were busily knitting away with a smaller pair of knitting needles. But then you would be hard pressed to find a time when Tomiko Oshiro wasn't knitting or sewing <i>something</i>. Akane wasn't even sure you could catch her out when she was asleep.
"Ah," Tomiko said with a smile bordering on friendly but not quite willing to cross. "It's the boytom! What's it been, about three hours?"
"Try two weeks, and it's tomboy," Akane corrected. "But I'm not a tomboy to start with!"
"Of course you're not," Tomiko said reassuringly. "Fancy meeting you here, Mariko's apprentice. I was wondering if perhaps you might do me another tiny favour? You see, I happened to, ahem, find these photographs of a certain young woman cheating on her handsome, strong and wonderful fiance with another woman of all people, but I simply couldn't muster the strength to deliver it myself." She clasped the back of her hand to her forehead, and continued right on knitting using only one hand, which really out to be impossible but there you go. "Oh, for a cute little innocent girl like me to deliver such shameful photographs, it's too much to bear!"
"But it's okay for a girl like me to deliver them," Akane noted, fully within deadpan snark mode. "Let me guess. You were stalking - ah, I mean, not <i>stalking</i> - just happened to be in the neighborhood with your camera when Ranma and Mariko were sparring and then just happened to take a picture from a highly suggestive angle."
"Huh?" Tomiko gasped, holding up a wool-knitted question mark. "But I didn't even see you there! How did you know? I mean - Ah, it's not like I - Like I'm stalking her or anything! It really was just a coincidence! I'm doing it for their own good; they're miserable together."
Actually, Akane was the head of the school club that shipped Mariko with her fiance, simply because whenever they argued you could still tell they really liked each other. She didn't hold to Tomiko's idea at all. Of course, the irony of that was completely lost on Akane because, like most other people in her life, she was selectively oblivious to the point of seeming like a complete idiot.
"... I notice you have a few upskirt shots of Mariko in here."
"Gimme!" Tomiko yeled, grasping the pictures back with one hand while wiping drool away from her mouth with the other. "I must... Destroy such wicked pictures before they taint any further eyes with their glimpse at wickedness! Uh... Where are they? I'm not seeing them - Come back here! You forgot to take these pictures with you!"
"No, I didn't!" Akane said, dashing off down the street. "Next time do your own dirty work!"
"Ooh, that irritating tomboy!" Tomiko declared, cutely stomping her foot. "Huh? What's this? Looks like she dropped something... Hmph! Serves her right. Well! If she's going to be such a rude meany then I'm going to just eat her little chocolate bunny!"
And that was when the shorts and t-shirt Tomiko was wearing underwent a sudden and startling transformation. A change which also happened to be a retroactive one....
<hr>
Meanwhile, or as meanwhile as the past can possibly be, Mariko was waiting outside of the Tendo compound. She'd gotten into another argument with her stupid fiance again and refused point blank to go anywhere with him. Not that it mattered anyway because he went to an all-boys school, which was fine with her because it meant she got to spend less time with him and more time catching up with her buddy and a new possible friend as well! Not to mention setting the two of them up because together they were soooo -
"UNCUTE!"
Nooooo, that was the opposite of where that thought was going. The front of the Tendo training hall came open and out stepped Ranma Saotome, sulking like a five-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and Akane Tendo, deliberately ignoring him as though her very life depended on it.
"Hello, good morning, don't you frown!" she began to cheer. "Turn it, turn it, upside down!"
There we go, that did it! Nothing like a bit of a goofy unexpected cheering routine to break someone out of their misery. You almost can't help but laugh a little at how silly it is.
"Hey, Mariko," Ranma said. "Would you mind telling her that I didn't know she was in there?"
"Hello, Mariko," Akane said. "Would you mind telling him that I put the sign up, so he really has no excuse?"
"Can you tell her that our pops are trying to set us up, and I can easily see mine being enough of a dumbass to move the sign?"
"Can you tell <i>him</i> that he couldn't possibly be that stupid. Yes, even in spite of the Jusenkyo matter that sort of reasoning is completely moronic!"
"You know, it seems to me you have no trouble telling each other this stuff," Mariko said with a cutesy giggle. She made them hold hands, which they did for a moment before jerking them away from each other. Oh dear. Trouble was that she really could believe that Genma Saotome might do something just that stupid. The man was always -
"Found you!" a voice called out, just about the same time that Mariko's danger sense kicked into overdrive. She backflipped out of harm's way at the same time that Ranma grabbed Akane in his arms and leaped away in the opposite direction. Mariko landed and stared ahead of her in shock and surprise as a giant ball of wool landed right smack where she'd been standing, and somehow left a huuuuge dent in the pavement where it landed.
"At long last!" said a girl with pigtails tied on either side of her head that trailed down to her shoulders. "I've found you, Mariko Konjo! There will be no running away from our date this time!"
"Date?" Ranma said with a surprised blink and a scratch of his head. "Did she say 'date'?"
"No, I said fight! Idiot!" the girl yelled.
"Pretty sure she said 'date'," Akane added. The funny part was it took Mariko until now to notice Akane was leaning into Ranma's chest from when they had landed, and neither of them had realised that yet. Oh wait, there we go, darn! Pushing away from each other. Oooh, if only she had a camera!
"Did not!" the girl said. "Anyway! You! Mariko! You stood me up! And now it's time for payback. Oh, you must have been dreading this. Fearing the day I would finally track you down and exact my vengeance!"
Mariko looked her over. A pretty small figure wearing a cheerleader uniform, with a great big ball of wool across her back and wielding knitting needles in her hands like they were some kind of weapon. She tapped her lips in thought and was completely oblivious to the change sweeping across the street in front of her.
Mariko looked her over. A pretty small figure wearing a bunnygirl cheerleader outfit consisting of a low-cut black leotard that revealed more than a little cleavage, alongside a pleated skirt and stockings. She was carrying a great big ball of wool across her back and wielding knitting needles in her hands like they were some kind of weapon. She tapped her lips in thought and, after a moment, said what was on her mind.
"Who are you again?"
Once the girl had picked herself up from her faceplant, she answered by initiating a flashback....
<hr>
It was, of course, an all-girls school. One might expect this sort of place to have a certain kind of dignity. Not so much roughhousing as there would be among the boys. Yeah, not quite. Girls can be just as vicious as boys, and many of the ones that aren't are much, much worse. Every day at lunch was a battlefield - not for the food itself, but rather the place to eat the food.
Consider it a kind of social warfare. The first person to take a seat in the cafeteria essentially gets to say "I am saving these seats for my friends" and from that has a causal power over where everyone else sits. If you take a certain seat towards the middle at the back, you are gathering the attention of everyone else and putting an impression on them all that you are one to be watched. It makes them see you, leaves an impression.
It was Tomiko's intention to leave that impression. So that's where she wanted to sit, the all-important central back position. It would get her noticed. It would make a good impression on the cheerleading team, which meant they'd remember her when tryouts opened, thus giving her a headstart over all the other girls.
But every day without fail Mariko skipped and pranced her way past the rest of the girls. Tomiko could clear through a crowd like nobody's business. Didn't even need to use her hands. Just her hips. They'd clear a path or she'd clear it for them, but Mariko? That bitch kept on going up ahead by herself without a hair out of place or faltering in her perfect smile.
It wasn't like she liked Mariko or anything. It was just... Just that she couldn't stand the way that girl kept humiliating her! Because, sure enough, Mariko got picked for the cheerleading team and Tomiko didn't! Even though she'd already knitted her own uniform and everything!
"That's it!" she'd said one day. "I challenge you to a cheer-off! Tonight at the gym!"
"O! K! Mariko accepts!"
So if she accepted, where the hell was she? Tomiko was pacing anxiously around the empty gym hall, waiting for her rival to arrive at last. As always, she was knitting away to help pass the time. Which some might say was a trifle poetic considering her particular character quirk... Regardless! Ugh! Tomiko was gonna wear a hole in this floor at this rate, it felt like she'd been here for hours! Days! Weeks! Was she even going to show?!
"Ugh, that's it!" Tomiko finally declared. "I'm gonna go drag her here myself, or my name isn't To-mi-ko! Which it most certainly is! That cowardly bitch is gonna get hers, just you see!"
"... Wasn't she kind of early?" asked one student that had been watching from a hiding place. "The contest isn't due to start for another hour."
"Yeah," said another hidden student. "And she only hung around for about ten minutes too. That girl's sense of timing is way off!"
<hr>
An amount of time later that Tomiko would absolutely incorrectly state, she was running through a forest with her trademark ball of wool on her back, knitting a great big scarf as she ran. One might think that she was being chased by someone, or pursuing someone, but no. No, this was her training. From around a tree a target swung, and she in turn swung her scarf to strike it down where it stood. The next instant, rather than a target a mannequin head swung around from the tree, and Tomiko draped the scarf around it in a way that would make any young man's heart beat just a touch faster.
"I think I'm getting this now," she said. "Knitting style cheerleader martial arts! Use my knitting as a weapon, or a means to encourage! Instant tools built in the midst of battle! An extremely versatile style that Mariko has no C-H-A-N-C-E of beating!"
Except something in her gut was telling her it wasn't quite enough yet. She might need an extra edge, but had no way to tell what that something was. At least, until she somehow got lost while exiting the forest. That shouldn't be possible, right? It was sunrise so the sun should be in the... Wait, maybe it was dawn? Or evening? Eh! Whatever. She'd just keep on walking in a straight line until she got out the forest.
Or until she encountered a creepy temple in the middle of nowhere that was just begging to be explored, even though she was pretty sure it hadn't been there yesterday(and when she checked tomorrow, it wasn't actually there anymore). Maybe there was someone inside? She crept up to the front gate - Locked. Or perhaps the door was stuck? One swing of her hips later, and Tomiko's good old battering ram soon had that door wide open!
"Hello!" she called "I said H-E-L-L-O! Is anybody there? Is anybody - Ooooooh!"
Try to imagine a room that was basically almost entirely pitch black except for a single solitary spot which was completely lit up, and that the single lit up area had a clothes stand in it that contained a bunnygirl outfit. It was a strange thing indeed, but Tomiko almost couldn't help herself. She strode right on up to the stand, reached out a hand to stroke the fabric and couldn't believe what she was feeling. Before she even knew what she was doing she was tugging it on, somehow fitting it over her clothes without removing them at all -
And then when she looked down at herself, it was as though the clothes had somehow fused.
"Young miss!" a voice yelled, and an old man rushed into the room holding a sandwich and a candle. "What did you just do? Nooo! You're wearing the cursed bunnygirl uniform! Now every item of clothing you attempt to wear will turn into a sexy bunnygirl variation!"
"Say what now?" Tomiko intelligently asked.
"How did you even get in here, I locked the door!"
"Oh that's easy. My hips can unlock any door!"
"I bet they can," the old man nodded sagely. "Especially now that you'll be leaving so terribly little to the imagination, no matter what you wear. Ah, but be grateful! I knew one girl, got hit by some Chinese curse that sometimes turned her into an actual bunny rabbit! Hohoho! Ahem. This particular piece of clothing was made by a perverted old sorcerer, and we still don't quite know how he did it. We think he made a few similar kinds of outfits for girls he had an eye on, and each of them had a different flavour."
"Flavour?"
"Sorry, yes. We call the different outfits 'flavours'. They all had different magical effects, you see. This one is 'dark chocolate', but there are at least four others. It is strange, though. Nobody has ever actually been able to wear this outfit since it was made. I wonder what the trigger is that lets you wear it."
"Probably something as stupid as eating a chocolate rabbit some point later on in my life."
"... That's a fairly specific piece of sarcasm, young lady! Which probably means it's right, in my experience. Um. Try not to use that outfit's power, whatever it may be. You might hurt yourself. Or maybe someone else...."
<hr>
"Oh!" Mariko suddenly said, only because she suddenly remembered. "That's right! Tomiko Oshiro! The girl with a lousy sense of time. I remember now! I was told you'd arrived early, waited about ten minutes, then left ranting about how long I was taking to show up. How have you been, you silly little bunny?"
"Bunny?" Tomiko twitched. "<b>Bunny!</b> I'll show you who a bunny is! I've mastered the bunnygirl cheerleading martial arts style, and combined it with my cheerleading knitting style to deadly effect! Give me a "D", an "E", an "A" and another "D"! What do we get? Ma-ri-ko!"
- Mariko proceeds to hand Tomiko her ass. No, not literally.
- Take above, switch Mariko and Tomiko's names.
- The fight is called off on account of rain.
- Meanwhile in the present someone eats another of the bunnies.
- Something else
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